A collection of images taken fifty years ago by Charles W. Cushman, an avid traveler and amateur photographer, are a stark contrast.

Though Syria saw a number of coups d'état in the 1960s and in the decades before and after, Cushman's photos of downtown Damascus in 1965 paint a more mundane picture, showing families gathering, men riding donkeys, and shoppers in bustling bazaars.

Here's the Barada river flowing through Damascus.

"Sheep all over the Damascus highway."

Farmland rolling outside Damascus. Today, the city and the surrounding area are heavily contested between the Assad regime and Syria's various rebel groups. But when this photo was taken, the country's devastating civil war was still decades in the future.